Comments about ‘Letter: No more cuts to research’

Publicly supported education, science and
technology research & development (think NASA, NOAA, USGS, NIH, NSF, ect.)
are as critical to our economy and long-term well being as highways, bridges,
airports and waterways.

It would be an extreme case of
"penny-wise but pound-foolish" to cut funding to these vitally important
programs just because congress couldn't get its act together.

Since they are just reducing the funding, not cutting the research programs, I
am sure they can trim away the bloat in each program. We don't need all the
'chicken littles'. A few are plenty.

They can also quit
awarding research grants to drug companies. In case you haven't noticed,
big drug companies seem to be doing just fine, with record profits. They can pay
for their own research. But now they take research grants from government and
fund-raise privately, and then charge all patients extravagant prices for their
meds, including medicare patients. Seems we are subsidizing the big rich drug
companies twice, once for research and once for the actual meds at bloated
prices which they claim are due to research we already paid for.

To
add more insult, they reduce the production of older drugs they no longer get
the high price for, but are effective, and with the shortage they create, they
make people choose the newer drugs the companies make higher profits on, even
though they often are less effective. We need to clear out those dens of thieves
selling snake oil with government funding.

"core government functions such as scientific research, education, public
safety and environmental protection"...sir do you not own a copy of the
constitution..or did you mean to post this on the Tribune site?

Obamacare (ACA) is entirely self funded and
actually produces a revenue increase to the budget. Changing this would reduce
the increase and cause it to be a drain on the budget rather than helping to
limit the debt.

Entitlement reform is needed, however Obamacare has
already started the reform for Medicare and Medicaid.

Social
Security can be fixed by restoring the current reduction and removing the
current cap on income. If those happen, Social Security would instantly return
to solvency. Putting an income cap to stop the rich from receiving benefits
would actually allow Social Security to actually save money after payments by
between $7 Billion to $10 Billion each year. With the interest growing on this
amount each year due to further increased savings. Benefits could be increased
to further help spur the economy without causing any deficit to occur.

How about increasing the budget for NASA, it has been shown that for every $1
that is spent in NASA, the economy reaps between $4 and $10 dollars. This is
from increased technology and scientific investments. Let's look at what
we can benefit from with funding increases, not what we can cut just to cut.

You should probably write to your senators (lee and Hatch) urging them to
compromise. The President has compromised. It's time for the
"other" party to compromise.

Also, we have a huge revenue
problem. Lets raise tax rates on the upper income brackets to what they were
pre-80s. It's only fair and will help pay for government functions without
hurting the lower income classes. The rich have plenty of money to spare.

Donald- I echo conservative scientist- you should send this letter to the AARP
because they have made it clear- they're getting theirs before you get
yours. So here's our quite predictable situation. No one wants their
funding or benefits cut and no one wants to pay more taxes. Many want someone
else to pay more taxes however. We're bleeding a trillion dollars a year
and the Federal Reserve is buying 70% of all Treasury issued debt. The current
administration has shown zero interest in growing the economy but significant
interest in growing Government. So what's the plan? Just keep printing
money? If we're going to have Scandinavian levels of government spending
shouldn't we have corresponding Scandinavian levels of taxation?

The president compromised? He sent outrageous demands to congress including
increased spending in the billions and 1.6 trillion in higher taxes, when he
promised 2 dollars in cuts for every dollar of increased revenue. Then he
'compromised' to 1.4 trillion in new taxes, still no cuts. Now there
is talk of fixing the taxes, but not address spending, just to get a deal. Talk
about a losing plan for the country. Talk about the old plan we have had before
that never works.

How about we talk about cuts? So for the current
tax hike the president wants, we need 2.8 trillion in cuts, by the presidents 2
for 1 offer. The demos will never go for that.

The republicans
offered 800 billion in new revenue. When the president approves enough cuts to
meet the 2 for 1 promise on that much, then we can talk about more revenue in
exchange for more cuts.

But the reality is the president has no
intention signing any spending cut. His only goal is to dominate the
republicans. He doesn't care about the country, the economy, or the people.
He just wants to assert and grow his power.

One of the biggest lies perpetuated out there by the Fair and Balanced media is
that government is "too large." All that means is that repubs want to
shrink social services while increasing government programs they like (like
energy subsidies and defense spending).

What we really need is quite
the opposite. Lets shrink the corporate entitlements and greatly increase social
spending. We need to rebuild our infrastructure, invest in education, create
jobs with good wages, get rid of health insurance driven health care and get a
single-payer system, and invest in America.

Solutions:

1.
Overturn NAFTA2. Make it illegal (and actually enforce it) for any
politician to receive money from lobbyists or companies.3. Overturn
Citizens United.4. Break up the Big Banks. 5. GREATLY regulate Wall
Street.6. Single-payer system.7. Increase capital gains and income
taxes for the upper brackets to what they were in the 60s. 8. Greatly
expand Pell Grants and student loans.9. NO MORE BONUSES. Only after
workers' pensions and benefits have been paid for can CEOs receive their
bonuses. 10. Cut subsidies to Big Oil and Ag. Cut defense spending in half
to spend only twice as much as China.

Only after we follow my suggestions will we turn America around and recreate the
middle-class.

Which is the #1 problem repubs have. They feel like
the "free market" is what created the middle-class. They feel like the
"free market" can regulate itself.

Really? Who is stupid
enough to believe in that? If the free market could regulate itself then why
have we had 5,000+ years of a very small minority owning everything while the
vast majority have served as slaves, peasants, and sweatshop workers?

Look at how Canada, Germany, and Brazil have remained untouched from the
"Great Recession." They have strong central governments which have
regulated their markets. Look at how few protections we have!

Look at
America over the past 2 decades, CEOs lie to shareholders and workers and make
off with millions while everyone else suffers. ENRON, Big Banks, Hostess, are
all examples!

While some folks have enough money to build castles in
Park City and car elevators in California, the rest of us suffer and work 2-3
jobs to put food on the table.

It's simple. More government
intervention is needed, NOT LESS. The free market needs government to keep from
eating itself.

I'm sorry, but you have
been "drinking the Kool-Aid," Makid. The non-partisan Congressional
Budget Office (CBO) has already said that Obamacare will cost $1.76 trillion
over the next ten years.

As for your claim that Obamacare
"…has already started the reform for Medicare and Medicaid…"
the only thing Obamacare did was kick the can further down the road. Without
any meaningful entitlement reform, the Medicare Board of Trustees has stated the
Health Insurance Trust Fund (Medicare Part A) will run out of money in 2024. If
you believe some recent information from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO),
Medicare will run out of money three years earlier in 2021.

Christian 24-7 complains that the president isn't compromising "The
republicans offered 800 billion in new revenue."800 billion is a deal
that Obama offered TO the Republicans back in the middle of 2011. It was
described as "a remarkably, even stupidly generous offer". John Boehner
turned it down, because he believed that Obama would be a one term President.

His re-election, plus the expiring tax cuts, plus the automated spending
cuts means the President Obama has 5 trillion of additional revenue coming in
January. He only wants 1.6 trillion. THAT is compromise. The Republicans
offering back to Obama what Obama offered in 2011? That's an insult.